The Default Setting
by sunstonesea
Summary: Angry is the boss's default setting. In the aftermath, Hermione and Draco hide in a Ministry loo and discuss their options. That is, Hermione discusses their options, and Draco has different ideas.


Face flushed, robes in disarray, hair absolutely disheveled, Hermione Granger exited with great haste from the office of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Had Rita Skeeter been on the scene, her photograph would likely have appeared in the next day's Prophet with a caption making screamingly obvious use of bold type and synonyms for "scandal". Yet not a single head turned to face her, though she'd emerged in full view of an entire floor of her coworkers. Paying them exactly as much attention as they were paying her, Hermione fled down the aisle of cubicles as fast as she could without tripping over her robes.

"And if you bring me _one more_ bloody piece of parchment about werewolves or giants or, Merlin forbid, _house-elves_, your bushy head will be out of this department quicker than you can say '_Evanesco_'!"

As fast as she could was apparently not fast enough. Fustian Everard's practised bellow rang clear out of his office, raced above the cubicles, and wriggled in through the door of the loo before Hermione could slam it properly. As the sound echoed off the tiles, Hermione wondered how she'd ever disapproved of the _Muffliato_ charm Harry had found in his Potions book, and cast it with a tired flick of her wand.

In blessed silence, she sank to the floor (though not without first applying a judicious and very thorough _Tergeo_) and rested her head in her hands. Fustian Everard had been a good Auror in the field, demonstrating strong leadership and solid judgment in the captures of several Dark wizards directly after the war. He had been a natural choice for the Head's post. Only, no one had anticipated how both his temper and his volume (not to mention his waistline) would grow with his years in office.

Now, seven years after the victory at Hogwarts and five years after Everard's instatement, his temper, his volume, and his waistline had grown to the point where speaking to him was like holding one's face over a boiling cauldron. One that was triple-sized, and that was roaring profanities while one tried one's desperate best to stir.

He shouted at secretaries for making the tea too hot. He shouted at secretaries for making the tea too cold. He shouted at Aurors for filling forms with the wrong colour ink. He shouted at Hit Wizards for sending him owls before nine o'clock. And he shouted at Hermione Granger for bringing him entirely relevant parchments about the house-elves involved in a case the Auror Division was currently supervising. Even if she _had_ discreetly included a helpful pamphlet entitled "Let My House-Elves Go!: The Socioeconomic, Psychological, and Moral Implications of the Barbarous Practise of House-Elf Enslavement and Exploitation".

Hermione, who spent most days in the office, was certainly not unfamiliar with Everard's notorious bad humour. She merely hadn't experienced it for herself until today. Everard had read her packet in deadly, claustrophobic silence, his face gradually turning an intriguing shade of puce. Then he had slammed his meaty hands on his ostentatious mahogany desk and stood up so abruptly that Hermione had startled, violently, and flung her wand and her other paperwork all over his carpet. After laying into her for wasting her time, the department's funds, and his valuable oxygen with all the "foolish kerfuffle" about "bloody stupid creatures" that "don't matter a whit when we're saving human wizards", he'd added a good few minutes about "clumsiness" and the unacceptability of "having butterfingers" in a "noble profession that requires a firm hand and a steady wand, Miss Granger!" (Here his beady eyes had shone briefly with nostalgia for the fading glory of his younger days.)

Then he'd thrown her out of his office, quite unceremoniously, and given the vehemence of his parting shot, Hermione figured it would be at least a month before she could stick so much as a toe over his threshold without being verbally savaged. Two months before she could have him sign a form. Anywhere from three to a year before she could even mention her private project for reform of house-elf legislation within his earshot. Eyes shut, she sagged against the tiled wall and groaned.

"Mmmngr. Mmmngr!"

Hermione cracked open an eye and nearly kicked Draco Malfoy in the knee in her surprise to see his face leaning close over hers. "Mmmngr," he repeated, moving his mouth in exaggerated slowness.

"It's _Muffliato_, you idiot," she said, canceling the charm so that the tail end of his "—Granger!" reached her ears. "Also, this is the ladies'. You want the other door."

Draco ignored her. "This is all your fault."

"_What_ is all my fault?" Hermione said irritably. "I don't even know what it is and I'd put Galleons on it being your fault. It is always your fault. And now that we've established that, you can get your pointy nose out of my face."

Draco's pointy nose didn't budge. "It is your fault," he said, punctuating every other word with a jab of his wand in her direction, "that Everard summoned me out of an interrogation, shouted at me for the whole floor to hear, and then ordered me to pull the house-elf evidence from my case."

"My fault!" Hermione was so indignant that she sat up. "You told me to assemble that packet! And you told me to deliver it to him. If anything, you ought to have known better."

Draco's eyes narrowed as he straightened, letting the sickly ceiling light back onto her face. "You work on the same floor as Everard's office. Your desk is in the same _corridor_ as his office. Sound carries beautifully on this floor, as he just demonstrated—" Hermione winced "—and you're telling me you didn't know that angry is the boss's default setting?"

She blinked at him, slightly thrown. "Setting?"

"Yeah," Draco said, waving his hand over her head for emphasis. "Settings. Like on Muggle whatchamacallits. Com-putters?"

"Com_put_ers," Hermione said, "and how on earth do you know about a Muggle thing like settings? Or computers, for that matter?"

Draco waved his hand even more airily. "I'm an Auror. I'm a highly respected and broadly experienced Auror, in fact. I've seen things. _Muggle_ things."

"There is no innuendo to be found in the word _Muggle_, so you can stop saying it as if there was," Hermione told him primly, stuffing her wand back into the holster under her robes and trying to conjure a comforting fantasy of Fustian Everard's slow, preferably painful death.

Draco sniffed. "Well, you couldn't find innuendo without casting Point-Me, so I'm not about to take your word for it."

Affronted, Hermione drew her foot back and really did kick him in the knee. She watched him with a hint of amusement as he overbalanced and fell hard on his arse on the tiled floor. Unapologetically, she said, "I was envisioning Everard tumbling down one of the Ministry's bottomless elevator shafts. You interrupted me."

Draco's look of injury and betrayal was completely unconvincing. "You didn't have to kick me. What are we, first-years?"

"Judging by the level of your insults, you might as well be," Hermione said. Then she sighed. "We're sitting on the floor of a Ministry loo."

"That we are," Draco acknowledged, scooting around her legs so he could lean against the wall beside her. "You know, being shouted at and having to hide in the ladies' was not what I signed up for when I became an Auror."

Hermione rolled her head to look at him sideways. "Aren't Aurors allowed to hex people who are a public menace to the safety and well-being of the wizarding population? In which case…" She lifted her eyebrows meaningfully and trailed off.

"You wish it worked like that, Granger. And don't do that with your face." He grimaced downward. "I sincerely hope you cleaned this floor before you sat on it and then kicked me to it."

"Of course I did," Hermione said. "And I'm sure there's a legal loophole somewhere that would let you get away with hexing Everard's bollocks off."

Draco gasped in mock disbelief. "Why, Granger! Such unladylike sentiments."

Hermione refused the bait, answering with only a scowl. "Honestly, though, Malfoy. I'm certain that if we investigated, we could build a case. Health issues, for a start, since I know Hallard Hackett—I'm sure you don't remember, but he was very successful on that one case with the giants and the shrinking beans—resigned because of complications with an ulcer and I'm certain he would be happy to speak to us about how Everard contributed to stress in his working environment, though we'll have to make arrangements to interview him at St. Mungo's so we'd better send an owl—"

"Oh, no," Draco said, getting to his knees. "We're stopping right there. There is no 'we'll have to', or 'speak to us', because there is not going to be a case and I am not going to help you."

Hermione's head snapped up. "Don't be selfish, Malfoy," she said sharply. "Just because you don't like to work with me doesn't mean that you shouldn't take this opportunity to do a service for your fellow Aurors." After a moment, she added, "Not to mention all your fellow wizards, since Aurors protect the wizarding world and needless to say it's a difficult enough task to do well without a washed-up old Auror bellowing at you until you can hardly think!" The indignation echoed tinnily around the tiled walls.

"I didn't say anything about not liking to work with you," said Draco, pocketing his wand and offering her a hand. Her scowl deepened, but she didn't refuse. "No, Granger, I have nothing against you. In fact," he said, still holding her hand, "I'd like to buy you a drink tonight." Hermione's scowl froze, and wavered in her brown eyes, and crumbled into an uncharacteristic blank confusion. Draco's own eyes were very silver. "But here's the thing, Hermione—I like my job. Fighting Fustian Everard on a fault of his personality is not part of my plan to keep it."

"Erm," Hermione said.

Draco smiled and purposely dropped her hand. "And let's be honest: if the Auror department cared about personality, I'd be out of a job."

"I'll say," Hermione managed after a dumbfounded silence, during which those silver eyes just stayed on her and that wide smile just grew wider. "Your sense of romance could fit in a teaspoon."

Draco winked—winked! Hermione wanted to hex him blind—and said, "I'll be at your flat at eight. If you want romance, you'll keep the door shut. Somehow, though, I think I'll be seeing you."

"You think!" Hermione retorted. "You can save yourself the Apparition unless you're that keen on speaking with my closed door."

Clearly not listening, he opened the loo door with a flourish and said, singsong, "Come along, Granger." Hermione's plans, which had revolved around a quiet night in while Malfoy waited forlornly outside her flat door, were adjusted to include strangling Malfoy outside her flat door, followed by the quiet night in. "Best hurry," he said when she showed every sign of just standing there to fume. "Wouldn't want Everard to shout at you for—"

"_GRANGER!_"

"—idleness," he finished, and swept out the door with a self-satisfied smirk.


End file.
